A senior Taliban official has urged the group’s leader to lift education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying they have no excuse, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.
Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political assistant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made the remarks on Saturday in a speech in the southeastern province of Khost.
He told a ceremony at a religious school that there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, “just as there was no justification in the past and there should be no not be there at all.”
The government prohibited girls from continuing their studies after the sixth grade. Last September, it was reported that authorities had also halted medical training and classes for women.
In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and health professionals. Authorities have not yet confirmed the ban on medical training.
“We once again call on leaders to open the doors to education,” Stanikzai said in a video shared on his official account on the social platform X. “We are committing injustice against 20 million people out of a population of 40 million , depriving them of all their rights. This is not a matter of Islamic law, but of our personal choice or our nature.
Stanikzai once led the Taliban team during the talks that led to the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
This is not the first time he has said that women and girls deserve an education. He made similar comments in September 2022, a year after schools closed for girls and months and before a university ban was introduced.
But these latest comments mark his first call for a policy change and a direct appeal to Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst with Crisis Group’s South Asia program, said Stanikzai had periodically made statements calling girls’ education the right of all Afghan women.
“However, this latest statement appears to go further in that he publicly calls for a policy change and questions the legitimacy of the current approach,” Bahiss said.
In the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, earlier this month, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged Muslim leaders to challenge the Taliban on the education of women and girls.
She was speaking at a conference organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Muslim World League.
The UN has said recognition is almost impossible as long as bans on women’s education and employment remain in place and women cannot go out in public without a male guardian.
No country recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, but countries like Russia have established ties with them.
India is also developing relations with the Afghan authorities.
In Dubai earlier this month, a meeting between India’s top diplomat, Vikram Mistri, and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi showed their deep cooperation.